Genetic and Archaeological Perspectives on the Initial Modern Human Colonization of Southern Asia
Genetic and archaeological perspectives on the initial modern human colonization of southern Asia Paul Mellarsa,b,1, Kevin C. Goric,d, Martin Carre,f, Pedro A. Soaresg, and Martin B. Richardse,f,1 aDepartment of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom; bDepartment of Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AG, United Kingdom; cDepartment of Biology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom; dEuropean Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD, United Kingdom; eArchaeogenetics Research Group, Division of Biology, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, United Kingdom; fSchool of Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; and gInstituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal Edited by Richard G. Klein, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, and approved May 8, 2013 (received for review April 1, 2013) It has been argued recently that the initial dispersal of anatomically Paleolithic tradition” (1)], broadly similar to those documented modern humans from Africa to southern Asia occurred before the across a wide region of both Europe and western Asia over volcanic “supereruption” of the Mount Toba volcano (Sumatra) at a similar span of time (18). The claim that these industries provide ∼74,000 y before present (B.P.)—possibly as early as 120,000 y B.P. evidence for an early arrival of modern humans from Africa before We show here that this “pre-Toba” dispersal model is in serious 74 ka rests crucially on analyses of two small samples of residual “ ” conflict with both the most recent genetic evidence from both Africa core forms recovered from below the Toba ash-fall deposits (at and Asia and the archaeological evidence from South Asian sites.
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